Nuggets Waive Damion James.

James, a fourth year player out of Texas, was a long shot to make the roster after entering camp as a non-roster invitee, meaning his contract was not guaranteed. James arguably outplayed Jordan Hamilton in preseason action but as a first round pick he would have been due the 1.6 million dollars on his contract whether or not he made the team. In the end it seems the money kept Hamilton on the roster more than anything.

The Nuggets roster to start the season is as follows:

Ty Lawson

Randy Foye

Danilo Gallinari

Kenneth Faried

JaVale McGee

Nate Robinson

Evan Fournier

Wilson Chandler

J.J. Hickson

Timofey Mozgov

Darrell Arthur

Andre Miller

Quincy Miller

Jordan Hamilton

Anthony Randolph

What are your thoughts on the roster? Was James the right cut or did he deserve the spot that Hamilton was given? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

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Probably deserved the spot more than HAM did, but I don’t blame FO by saving 2M on it- neither guys was going to be a serious rotation player, so no point paying them both.

Who knows, maybe HAM will show us the glimpses of his scoring ability that we’ve seen previously and we will all jump back on his bandwagon haha!

Jack McCracken

Here’s hoping we win the draft lottery in the spring and our front office doesn’t screw up the pick. I really don’t have a good feeling about this season. Horrible moves in the summer. Our young players haven’t shown the improvement we need. The only bright spot is that Gallinari may come back earlier than expected. Just don’t see Brian Shaw being able to implement “his way” effectively in a year with a group that for years has played almost the exact opposite style.

Charliemyboy

I wish Randolph was 30 pounds heavier. Moz will remain Moz. JHam will remain JHam. So after 57 wins we change. Miami and SA didn’t. On the other hand did you see Harden/Howard eating lunch with Duncan/Parker? We have a long way to go. It has to be every play. It will take some change all right. Can’t believe we beat these teams last year after watching our pre-season performance vs. theirs. I keep hoping our athleticism and Shaw’s brain/knowledge/attitude will hurry up and prove themselves. Randolph especially, and Fours can be something. I guess the Faried 6th man makes sense. I think it will be a yo-yo season being surprising at the end of the year. Hope.

Ckwizard

It was preseason, and every Nugget was up and down… IMO Hamilton wasn’t that bad and wasn’t good… But come on which Nugget had a coming out party this preseason… Nobody! This team isn’t who they will be yet and I don’t think any of us fans can say how this season will unfold… The only thing this preseason made clear is this team has a way to go if they want to compete with the best teams and James while bringing effort, did little to show that he improved the team beyond that of any other player on the roster. I am excited for the season just to see how this team grows (or doesn’t) with Shaw as the coach, as a basketball fan it is obvious this team has talent now the question is how good of a coach is Shaw?

Native Nugget

Been watching the preseason unfold and adjusting my mind to taking a step back in order to take the next step forward. I expect the first part of the season will involve a lot of growing pains and hoping to see the payoffs about 3/4s of the way through the season. I feel pretty confident Shaw understands what it takes to play “playoff” ball and even has a decent system for implementing the needed fundamentals, my big question is whether the fans and the players can grit out the early season losses and keep faith. These guys are a young crew and many of them liked fast-break-Karl-ball because they didn’t have to discipline themselves as much on offense or defense. Now they are being asked to play more disciplined and lose more games while they learn how. IMO, motivating young players in that situation will be the biggest test of Shaw’s coaching ability. He doesn’t have the cred as a head coach yet to demand trust.